Comparing Cats: A Discussion of Similarities & Differences

[tigerluver]

(09-28-2020, 03:23 AM)Ashutosh Wrote: @tigerluver, I don’t want to step on your toes or anything but the most accurate way would be to calculate average weight based on population percentage rather than number of specimen captured because it gives a much truer representation. It would be like if in India, the parliamentary representative are based upon a particular area size rather than a population size whereby representation will not be equal.

So, there are 3500 Bengal Tigers (India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh). 210 or 6% are from Sundarbans (India, Bangladesh). Let us assume the average of Sundarbans tiger is 140 kilos, and the average weight of Mainland tigers is 205 kilos, then,

Avg weight of Bengal tiger should be 0.06X140 + 0.94X205 = 201.1

The number of specimens should be used as a better determiner for the average weight of a subpopulation rather than paint a picture which doesn’t take the population factor into account.

Like if we were to break the mainland tiger into Central Indian, Southern Indian, Terai and Assam (these are just broad categories, you could further categorize them or even subcategorize them using the population from individual parks). 

Now we use the same population percentage to give weightage to an average weight of the certain subpopulation to arrive at the final average weight for mainland tigers.

This is an interesting point, I like it. However the current sample sizes are so small that one would be making heavy assumptions using this method. In other words, the sample sizes are so small that those percentages could be a priori. And the next issue is if two populations are that different, is there any point in averaging them together? We use averages to describe a population composed of similar individuals. Averaging a Sunderban tiger with a central Indian tiger results in an average that reflects an imaginary population that doesn’t exist. I know in forums people like averages to come up with numbers on essentially imaginary animals that don’t exist to support their points. The tiger is known as the largest cat not because its theoretical/imaginary average is the highest (the imaginary subspecies averaged tiger is not), but because its largest scientifically published population is about 20% heavier than the largest population of the penultimate species in mass. Reply